So I've been playing for about a month and it took me a while to get used to the trading and all, learned the hard way to not forget maxing everything on S rares before special training them since it basically kills their value if you don't at least max lvl it (luckily it was only a 1 energy drink cost idol that I ruined this way so only 2 lost, didn't even manage to trade it for a master trainer yet xD).
But I think it would be worth letting newer people know how this exactly work, big red text saying "NEVER USE REGULAR STAM/ENERGY DRINKS" which lot of people didn't know (I myself wasted 5 that way). And also I would like to share my observation of what are the values of things and how the trade generally works.
Too bad there is no subsection for this game on the forums as having topics like "tips for newbies" would be great. I basically had to go through Japanese wikis to learn the basics (
http://www18.atwiki.jp/imas_cg/pages/240.html is pretty useful, it tells you what stats are useful for which events, pretty much tells you that putting any points into defense is a waste and how to properly special training idols including the very useful link to the special training checker when you are buying a + idol
http://nanairo.info/imas_cg/mainte-check.php so you don't buy a weak one, and there were few other pages worth reading).
Maybe we could make some elaborate effort to finally update the wiki page since it has lot of outdated information or a new page with tips for beginners, I'd be up for helping with such project.
But for today, I would like to at least share the values I observed for my month of trading.
Main currencies used for trade:Stamina Drink: This is the lowest whole item you can use to basically buy any idol in the game, it is more common then the alternative Energy Drink but pretty much interchangeable (*read note on drinks bellow).
If you were to put the value into Money, it would be about 5,000,000 to 7,500,000 per one.
Energy Drink: Just like Stamina Drink, 5M to 7.5M on average can substitute one drink. Energy drinks are much more common on lower cost idols but it is not too uncommon to see high cost idol also sold for a mix of Stam+Energy or even pure Energy, although if you are aiming for one of those, probably start stocking Staminas instead as you will have wider choice.
* note on rate between drinks: As mentioned both drinks are pretty much 1:1 in most cases, except very rare events where you can get cheaper Energy drinks, such as the last event. Normally it costs 100mobacoins (about a dollar) but sometimes you can get like 10+3 pack or similar which for a brief moment lowers the overall value of said drink (~0.8x). This seems to normalize a day or 2 after the deal is no longer available.
Money - money is mostly used as a spare change currency, when you don't really want to sell for 2 drinks but nobody would buy for 3, you can put it for like 2 and 2Mil money and you will most often than not sell it. You can then use the money together with Friendship Points to level and Special Train some idols to earn more drinks. Anything that is worth less than 5 mil will be sold for money and you would have to be very lucky to sell something like that even for 1 drink.
Since people are sometimes lazy to level their idols, if there is no max lvl version of an idol listed, you can sometimes put up a trade of 1 drink + 1 of the same idol and if someone lazy comes you can get a drink for about 1 million and a bunch of FP's, which is a good value, but these opportunities are not that often.
Master Trainer - useful currency for lower cost trades, it usually values about 1.5 mil money or about 1/4 of a drink so if you have some of them and you see like 2 drink cost idol for 1 drink and 4 Master Trainers, it is definitely a good trade. Buying or selling trainers individually wastes trade tickets since they are S rare and as such require 3 to sell, getting a discount on idols is a great way to get rid of them while trading for something else and as such saving trade tickets.
Special Technique Master Trainer: - easy 2 drinks or about 10-15mil, these are traded all the time so if you need 2 quick drinks, sell one of these. You can even put like 2 mil on top so 2 drinks 2 mil easy trade within an hour or 2.
Unlimited Rare+: - if you just plonk 2 rares into rare+ (without any leveling before), you can for 1 trade ticket sell it for about 1.2 mil as well. They are pretty much used the same way as Master Trainers - to level the ability of an idol, and you can trade them for 2 rare medals too. Since the % chance for the ability is lower, it puts them a little bellow the Master Trainer value, but you can trade them for 1 ticket each which makes them great. And don't let the past trades confuse you, if you see that last 10 sold for 700k, it just means people were selling them under the price - just check the current listings and if nobody is selling them for money (and you can never realistically sell these for drinks), just put it for even like 1.3+ mil and the trade is done in a few minutes. It is a great way to dump your remaining Trade tickets before 5am JST where you will be refilled to 3 again. Or if you see someone selling for like 700k, just get it and resell later for more, money is always useful for auto lessons.
Limited Rares, S rares and +: just inspect the market before trading those, they vary in cost depending on their stats, if they have atk/def boost (def boost suck), how limited they were etc. When buying, try sniping a 1-2 less drink cost one since people want quick drinks and often undercut during the course of a day. When most of the idols you want to buy are selling for 20, you can probably get it for 18 anyways. In these cases don't pay much attention to max LVL because unless you are lazy you can max it yourself much cheaper than 1 drink of worth, BUT if there is a difference in ability level, you can consider paying extra drinks (if one is ability rank 6+ for only 1-2 more drink, it is worth it).
When buying + version, be careful not to buy a bad one, check with the website
http://nanairo.info/imas_cg/mainte-check.php that they used MaxAffectionMaxLVL x 2 to make the + version, if not then don't buy it and rather buy 2 regular ones and special train it yourself. + version made out of 2 non max level idols is considered a ruin and you'll be glad to get rid of it for 1/4 of the price, it would be a disaster on expensive idols.
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So yeah, I hope this can be helpful to some people (it would definitely be helpful to me if I read this a month ago when I was starting xD). Let's maybe discuss if we can somehow update stuff like this on the wiki to make the game more English newbie friendly, the lack of tutorial and tips might be the reason why this game is not that spread in the west despite being very popular in JP.
PS: as mentioned this is what I've learned in about a month, if someone more proficient would like the correct anything I said please do so, I might still be uncertain about some things so an opinion of a veteran would be very valuable. I have also not been able to experience various inflation and price changes over the course of the years the game has been runnin and there hasn't been any drastic change in the time I was playing, but some of the older players might have better insight on how the economy works there and what affects the cost of things in the long run.
